Yesterday I shared how we decided on and planned out the accent wall for the nursery. Once we had made all of our major decisions, we headed to Lowe’s to buy some wood. We decided to use solid wood for this project, despite the fact that nearly every tutorial I saw used MDF. We figured since we were being neurotic about having a solid wood crib, it would be a little counterproductive for us to line the entire wall behind the crib with MDF. While MDF would have been the cheaper option, we decided to buy some 1×4″ whitewood boards. We liked the chunkier look of a 4 inch wide board and it was most cost efficient to go with the 1 inch depth. We picked up 10 foot pieces and it ran us about $75 for more than enough wood. Which we paid for with a gift card from Christmas 🙂 But if you wanted to save money you could certainly use MDF boards, or have a sheet of MDF cut for half the price. I’ve also read of some people using lattice or furring strips, which we were open to using but the sizes didn’t work out for us.

Once we got the boards home, we sanded the fronts and sides with our new sander, which we also got for Christmas.

Since we bought decent boards and were picky about the ones we chose, we didn’t have to do too much sanding and used 220 grit paper. We mostly just got rid of the rough edges and made sure the fronts were nice and smooth. I even got to play with the sander, since it was extremely user friendly.

I have no face! The only way you can tell it’s me is by the exceptionally tight non-maternity jacket I am still squeezing into. Every week I think it will be the last for that coat and a few weeks ago my belly actually busted the zipper. But I managed to get the zipper back on track and continue to squeeze myself into it. Anyway, despite the fact that I had a dust mask and goggles nearby, the new sander sucks up the dust as you sand so there really was none. Pretty fancy 🙂

When we researched how to get the boards onto the wall, we saw that most people glued and nailed their boards. Knowing that our solid wood, 1 inch thick boards were larger and heavier than most other tutorials, I thought gluing and nailing was our best bet. But then we were back in the VOC predicament… here I am, the lady who emailed Baby Appleseed to ensure that the crib we wanted did not use glue that contained formaldehyde and I’m about to glue a bunch of boards to my nursery wall. After a little visit to the Liquid Nails website, I saw that their “Projects” product worked on wood and molding and came in a low-VOC, green certified, no toxic fumes and safe for use around children, version. We picked some up and put some on each board.

Yeah we have no light in the baby’s room so we’re working with a single Ikea lamp for the time being. Please forgive the poor quality pictures until we buy a light fixture.

We started with the bottom boards, then added the top boards. We made sure that these 4 boards were nailed into studs and well, we nailed the hell out of them. We wanted to make sure that the weight of the 10 foot board was not going anywhere.

Then we added the two boards to either side.

At this point, as you can see in the picture above, we decided to trace some boards to make sure our interior boards would work. We ran into 2 very minor issues… #1- there is an outlet on the wall and #2- 1×4″ boards are actually smaller than 4 inches wide.

In my sketch, the two interior horizontal boards are 12 inches from the frame. The vertical boards are 24 inches apart.

There is an outlet in the bottom box on the left hand side, about 12 inches from the bottom board. We easily fixed this by making each of the horizontal boards 13″ from the frame rather than 12″. Like I said, easy fix.

For the vertical boards, since we couldn’t nail them into studs, we decided to make those our “choppy” pieces that we cut in 3 pieces to keep them lighter. We kept the horizontal boards (which could be nailed into multiple studs) whole. Since we did this, it was easy to cut the 3 top small pieces and adjust them to compensate for the slightly thinner boards. Here’s Mike measuring before they were actually attached to the wall…

I think each gap ended up being around 25 1/4″. Then we just lined up the remaining vertical boards to make sure they matched the top ones, leveled (plumbed?) them, and we were done!

Mike filled all of the seams and nail holes with wood filler and it’s just waiting for a sanding.

Then we need to add crown molding to the top, base boards to the bottom, caulk, prime the boards, paint… and we’re done!

Really this wall was incredibly easy and took us such little time. We spent maybe 2-3 hours on it Sunday before the Superbowl, which allowed us to sand and install the boards for the outside frame. Then last night we spent another 2-3 hours sanding and installing the interior boards and that was it! Oh and included in that is the time I spent sitting on a chair eating Thin Mints….

Rebecca and I have always loved molding in a home. Whether it was crown molding, large baseboard molding or bead-board wainscoting, we were in love with it. For me, there was something about the clean lines it presented and the overall framing of the room. It is a great finishing touch that can ultimately transform a room.

We always talked about doing our own molding, but it was something we were scared to do ourselves. How do we do the corners, how do we make the cuts, will I cut my hand off using the power saw — all scary questions that ran through my head. We previously had a friend of the family install some molding in our formal living room.  Our plan was to eventually bring the molding into our foyer area, up the stairs, and the upstairs hallway.

So when I told Rebecca earlier in the week that I had an itch to do a chair rail, she kind of shrugged me off thinking it was just another molding conversation that would soon pass.

But when we woke up Saturday morning, we began passing along ideas to accomplish during the day since we both felt somewhat motivated.  Rebecca mentioned hanging some curtains and I mentioned the chair rail.  We decided to start with the upstairs hallway since it would be the easiest in terms of straight cuts and easy angles.  We made some measurements and a couple minutes later, we were on our way to Lowe’s to pick up some molding.

Here is the view looking down the hallway and into our master bedroom.  The plan here is to put up a chair rail and then eventually do boxes; similar to our living room in the picture above.

Everything is pretty straight so cutting+nailing would be pretty straight forward.  This was so until we got to an angle at the top of our stairs.

We struggled with this for maybe a half hour or so.  We could not figure out how to make this cut.  We tried several different cuts, holding them up and trying to determine how to do this.  We went back and forth a bit before I went downstairs to draw the angle on paper and try to calculate some numbers.  And just when I was about to lose my patience, Rebecca figured it out.  We made two cuts with some scrap, one angle at 20 degrees and the other at 25 degrees.  We held the pieces together and sure enough, we were golden.

A few more finishing cuts later, and we were finished.

So what did I learn with this experience?

• We waited just about a year to do this project because we were scared.  We were scared for absolutely no reason.
• Invest in a nail gun with a compressor.  We used an electric nail gun and half our nails barely went completely in.  We had to hammer a lot of them flat with the surface.
• Take your time.  Measure twice, cut once.  Or if you have scrap pieces, make some cuts as an example and work from there.
• The molding area at Lowe’s isn’t scary nor overwhelming.

I categorized this post as inexpensive design because this was an incredibly cheap project to accomplish — especially compared to what we would have paid a contractor.   All said and done, 40 linear feet of molding and some tubes of caulk ran us just under $100.  An absolute steal.

It’s deja vu all over again.

Ok, it was a bit more funny when Yogi said it (Go Yanks!).  It seems like just yesterday we walked into a brand new house with brand new hardwood floors.  Wide planks, dark cherry color — we were in heaven.  But unfortunately, things took a turn for the worst.  Boards started to chip, some started to “creak,” “crack,” and “pop,” and some just decided to no longer stay flush against the subfloor.  Fortunately for us, the builder was willing to rip everything up and install new flooring.

They started on the area that used to push up and against the wall.  If this incline had some more time, it’d be a skateboard ramp for Macky.

And before we knew it, the wood just started to pile up.

After some hours coding away in the office, I came out to discover a good portion of the new floors were already installed!

Here is a good shot from the formal living room looking into the entry way.  Please ignore the the room covered in plastic — that is my office and you can’t see it until the master reveal!  I’m kidding, there was dust flying everywhere, the contractors felt bad for me while I was working.

Not quite kid tested, but…

And finally, some shots of the completed floors.  Almost as if nothing ever occured these last few days.

The install wasn’t too bad.  A bit of dust here and there and some scuff marks on some of our molding.  The builder is sending in a cleaning crew tomorrow to, well, clean and also a painter to touch up some of the molding.  Good stuff.  I’m hoping everything works out with these floors; they already feel and look better compared to the previous floors.  I am, however, a bit concerned about the previous floors.  Where will they go?  Will they sit in a landfill for the next X hundred years or can they be used/recycled?  I’m hoping to get some of these answers tomorrow morning when the builder stops over.